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Dry hair, rough skin? No problem. Try these amazing and easy tips to help keep your skin and hair beautiful all winter long
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We all dream of a healthy looking skin and shiny long hair. Not only does it look good to the eyes but is an indication of our physical health. Winter time can be harsh for the skin if we do not properly take care of ourselves. As skin is designed to protect us from disease, illness, and allergens, it’s essential to tend to it.
There are a number of things one can do to protect one’s skin and hair from the chilly winds and remain fresh and glowing. Here are some of the key tips to help keep your skin and hair beautiful all winter long:
Skin Care Tips
As the weather change, so does our skin. But no need to fret over the weather as we have just the right tips for you so that you are prepared for the winter weather.
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Well Balanced Diet
A well-balanced diet is one of the vital elements for healthy skin. Include Vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids, either as supplements or through increased intake of nutritious foods, such as foods, fish, nuts and green vegetables can help improve the elasticity of our skin.
Moisturize Your Skin
The water content of our skin plummets simultaneously with the outdoor humidity meaning that our skin demands better care and a high-quality moisturizer. The type one chooses depends largely upon the type of skin one has. For dry or combination skin, choosing an oil based product is a prudent move. Water based moisturizers are much more useful in the heat of summer. Thicker, greasier night creams are usually oil based so they can work miracles all night long.
Use Natural Oils to stay hydrated
Natural moisturizers always work best. Olive oil and coconut oil are ultimate saviors, though Shea butter, cocoa butter, avocado oil, sweet almond oil, and vitamin E oil also work well. One should look for an “ointment” moisturizer that’s oil-based, rather than water-based, as the oil will create a protective film on the skin that retains more moisture than a cream or lotion.
We should choose our oils with care as not all oils are appropriate for use on the face. The “non-clogging oils” like avocado oil, mineral oil, primrose oil or almond oil are suitable choices. Shea oil — or butter — is contentious, because it can block facial pores. One can also go for lotions containing substances called “humectants” (including glycerine, sorbitol and alpha-hydroxy acids) which attract moisture to our skin.
Use Sunscreen
Even in fall and winter, especially with snow glare, one is exposed to the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun. Exposure to sunrays accelerates the aging of epidermis, the superficial layer of the skin. If possible, one should find moisturizers that contain sunscreen.
Use a humidifier
During the winter, our heaters run for the better part of the day. Humidifiers ensure that the moisture content in the surrounding atmosphere is kept at optimum level, preventing the skin from drying out. It is especially essential to use a humidifier during the night. In addition to keeping our hair and skin moist, it serves to keep our sinuses clear and better equipped to fight off respiratory pathogens.
Keep yourself hydrated
Water makes up 60% of our body weight and is an essential requirement of our skin and entire body to remain healthy. If our facial skin is uncomfortably dry, one should avoid using harsh peels, masks, alcohol based toners or astringents, as they can strip oil from our skin. Using a cleansing milk or mild foaming cleanser, a toner without alcohol and masks that are “deeply hydrating” rather than clay based is a much better option. However, these products are to be used only occasionally and natural methods to keep hydrated, i.e. the right amount of water consumption daily are always number one in skin care.
Soaking in a burning-hot bath feels extremely comforting after a long cold day. However, the high temperature of the water breaks down the lipid barriers in the skin, sucking out the moisture. A lukewarm bath with oatmeal or baking soda can help keen the skin soft and supple.
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Hair Care Tips
When the weather gets chiller and the air gets drier, that is the time when you need to take special care of your hair. Here are some tips to keep your hair healthy and voluminous during the chilly season:
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Include Vitamins and keep a Healthy Diet
Healthy hair grows best on clean, dandruff free skin. This can be achieved if we make vitamins a part of our daily diet. Foods such as eggs, carrots, fruits and leafy green vegetables are excellent sources. Moreover, a useful tip is to comb our hair thoroughly supplementing the practice with massaging oil into it. Both of these good habits improve blood circulation to the scalp and our hair can maximally utilize the right amount of vitamins from the blood. If you want healthy, soft and shiny hair then give priority to your food.
How to solve Static Hair Problem
One of the bothersome things about winter is our hair getting charged up, messy and static after wearing the all too important hoodies, scarves and beanies. To tackle this problem, one should use a vented hair brush that has a combination of plastic and boar bristles while combing one’s hair. We should wash our hair not with boiling hot but lukewarm water which preserves the natural oils of the hair. Applying a leave-in conditioner also keeps the hair smooth.
Drying out hair properly
Damp hair and scalp attract a lot of problems like dandruff, breakage and the notorious split ends. Therefore it’s imperative to dry out our hair properly by first gently squeezing out excess water with the help of a towel and thereafter using a good hair dryer, using the cool setting option. If one desires to speed up the process, using the blow dryer at a safe distance of 15cm away from the hair is the best choice.
Deep Conditioning
Conditioning is a vital part of hair care routine and one should struggle to follow this good practice in the prescribed, right way to attain the best results in the harsh winter. It is essential to end every hair wash session with conditioning. After clearing up the shampoo lather and rinsing the hair with plentiful water, one should apply the conditioner, beginning mid-length to the ends of our hair with special attention to the ends as they are the most dry and damaged parts. Leave the conditioner for a few minutes and rinse it out with lukewarm water. It is mostly advised to end the wash with cool water which serves to seal the moisture, leaving a smooth lustrous feel to our hair.
